


all lost

by Llwy



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe - Dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llwy/pseuds/Llwy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vampires are vicious predators. They are not kind, they are not merciful, and they are not human. Bella Swan learns that lesson the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all lost

Shivering, she pulled her thin coat tightly around her as she made her way out into the cold Forks weather, the rain stinging her face as she hurried to her truck. She fumbled with the keys, almost dropping them into an icy puddle below before recovering, managing to open her vehicle and slide into the driver’s seat. Turning the keys in the ignition, she gratefully switched the truck’s heater on full, still shaking slightly as she pushed down the handbrake.

Her name was Isabella Swan, Bella to her friends. Only seventeen years old, she’d recently moved from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, Washington, and was not particularly enjoying the change. It was nice to see her father again, sure, but to a seventeen year old girl seeing family is often second place to missing friends. She was not a particularly good person, nor particularly horrible, she just wanted to try to blend in. She was good in English, bad in maths, clumsy to a fault. Just another American teenager trying to get through High School and maybe scrape enough money together to go to a decent college.

Sighing loudly to herself, Bella reversed out of the driveway, silently wallowing in feelings of self-pity as she drove towards her new school. She had rather a penchant for melancholy, often preferring to wrap herself in a blanket of misery and martyrdom than to look on the bright side of things. She was one of those people who enjoy making life harder for themselves, holding the tools for their own destruction tightly in their fist.

Much sooner than she’d have liked, she turned her truck into the car park for her new school. It was an unimpressive establishment, a few low grey brick buildings and a gym that looked as though it’s prime had probably come and gone before Bella was born. The whole place seemed slightly sad to her, though she dismissed that as not yet being acclimatised to the small town way of life. She was somewhat late, having had trouble finding the place, and thankfully the car park was almost vacant of students as she parked. Getting out of her truck, she put her bag over her head to shield her hair from the rain, silently bemoaning the fact she hadn’t had time earlier to look for her hooded jacket. Looking around, she gave a sigh of relief upon spotting a sign pointing to the ‘Administrative Office’, and hurried that way, wanting to get out of the perpetual rainfall that seemed to loom over Forks.

The office was warm and dry, thankfully, and Bella didn’t mind waiting as they searched for her details on a computer that she thought looked more like something out of History rather than IT class. She took in the faded, drab decor, the wire mesh criss-crossing over the dingy window panes, the colourful, slightly pathetic posters that urged her to enjoy student life and engage in various extra-curricular activities. In short, she thought it nothing like her school in Phoenix, and, like so many other uprooted people, decided that any change was a change for the worst. So wrapped up was she in her own woe, she almost failed to notice the secretary calling for her. Smiling falsely at the woman who’d handed her the schedule, Bella cast a sceptical eye over what classes she was going to be partaking in today.

Geometry, double English Literature, Spanish and Biology. Apart from Geometry, she considered it a fairly good day, and it was in slightly lighter spirits that she departed from the office into the cold of the outdoors.

\--

The rest of the morning passed fairly quickly for our protagonist, caught up in this new world. She met some new friends, who, while she considered them nothing on the friends she’d left behind, were friendly to her and seemed to delight on showing her the ropes. She kept forgetting their names, much to her embarrassment, though none of them seemed to hold it against her, and indeed just laughed as she accidentally called Jessica ‘Julia’.

So there she sat, surrounded by friendly faces as they shared the warm glow of companionship between them.

That was when she first saw them.

They looked like something brought to life from a faded painting, all sharp brush strokes and discoloured skin, their eyes hard gems shaded heavily in black. They were lifeless, inhuman, and so very unreachable. They might try to look the part of normal teenagers, their hair perfectly styled into whatever fashion was in that particular month, their clothes looking like something out of a fashion magazine, but there was something about them that distanced them from others. They were beautiful, yes, but beautiful in the way a painting was, lifeless and unchanging. They were cold, they didn’t belong.

Peering curiously at them from over her sandwich, Bella addressed her newfound friends, her curiosity peaked by the new arrivals.

“Who’re they?”

Blinking in confusion, Jessica swallowed what was left in her mouth, washing it down with a sip of orange juice, and turned around to look at what Bella had seen. She shuddered slightly before turning back, leaning forward over the table to speak to Bella, her voice low against the din of the cafeteria.

“Those are the Cullens. They’re all adopted children or something, their father’s a doctor in the hospital. Stay away from them, they’re really creepy. Just being around them...” She broke off then to shudder, risking a quick glance behind her shoulders at the subjects of their conversation. “I mean... When they look at you... I don’t know how to explain it... It just gives me the creeps.”

Allison chose then to speak up, toying idly with her salad, only the tightness of her grip on the plastic fork betraying the unease she felt.

“It’s like... They don’t think they’re better than you, they know they are.”

The rest of the group nodded assent, and, when Mike loudly and obviously changed the conversation to who they thought would win the big game the coming weekend between the Red Sox and the Yankees , everyone was glad to leave the topic of the Cullens firmly closed.

\--

Maybe if Bella’s association with the Cullens had ended there, this would be an altogether different tale. She may have finished high school, gone to a decent college, studied English Literature. She may have gone into teaching, fallen in love with a co-worker, been happily married and the mother to several delightful children. She may have lived to a good age, been a grandmother, been buried along with her husband while respectful mourners cried silently and told one another that she’d lead a good life.

But that’s not the tale I’m telling.

\--

She was late to Biology, seeing as the was the only one from her group of newfound friends who had the class at that time and thus got lost while searching for the room. The biology teacher, being a remnant from the days where corporal punishment was encouraged, was entirely unsympathetic to her excuses of it being her first day, and simply told her not to waste his time as he pointed to an empty seat in one of the front desks for her to sit on. A seat that just so happened to be right next to one of the Cullens she’d seen at lunch. She considered arguing against the teacher’s imposed seating arrangements, but, glancing around, she now saw that the seat next to the Cullen was in fact the only free seat in the class. So, swallowing the irrational fear she felt creeping over her, she sat down.

He was even more eerie up close. His skin held a deathly pallor, and there were large dark shadows under his eyes, making him look like he was recovering from a long illness. His face was classically handsome, all high cheekbones, strong chin and prominent eyebrows, but it was a strange, warped beauty. When he turned to look at her his eyes were disks of gold, narrowed menacingly as he looked her up and down. She repressed a shudder, feeling like meat on a butcher’s block under his intense gaze.

“I’m Edward.”

Then, without saying another word, he turned back to the front of the class, picked up his pen and began noting the words of the teacher.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t breathe a sigh of relief.

\--

“Excuse me?”

She stood by the desk in the office, catching the attention of the small gray haired woman who worked there as she hung up the phone. The woman smiled in a way that made Bella suddenly ache for her mother and straightened out the hideous cardigan she wore.

“Yes miss... Swan, wasn’t it?”

Bella nodded assent, her fingers nervously twisting a lock of her black hair around and around as she summoned up the courage to talk.

“Yes. I was... Wondering if it’s possible to switch one of my classes...?”

The woman blinked, and turned back to the ancient computer to type a few words in, supposedly bringing up schedule information.

“What class do you want to switch?”

Bella smiled in relief that it was possible to switch her class, a weight lifted from her chest.

“Biology.”

The woman frowned at that, and Bella could feel her newfound hope sinking fast. One of her fingers accidentally caught a strand of hair and she winced as it was pulled out, burying her hands deeply into the pockets of her jacket to stop herself from playing with her hair further.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid all other science classes are full. I hope it’s not a problem, I’m really sorry I couldn’t be of help.”

Bella smiled falsely, thanking the woman for her assistance despite this, and the two exchanged a few words of pleasantries before the office phone rang and Bella escaped into the brooding gloom of the outside. She slowly strode to her truck, revelling in her own despair at having to sit next to someone like that. He was just creepy, plain and simple. He sent a bitter shiver down her spine every time he looked at her.

She spent her drive home in deep thought, and it was rather lucky for her that the roads of this small town were mostly bare or else her distraction could have meant her untimely demise. As it was, though, she made it home in one piece, cooked a simple meal of frozen pizza and garlic bread for her and her father. After food was done, she made her excuses and quickly hurried upstairs, longing to be in the haven to all teenagers that is their bedrooms.

\--

She woke late the next morning, shaking off vestiges of a disturbing dream. She’d dreamt that she’d awoken to find Edward Cullen standing in the corner of her room by the window, his white skin stark against the darkness. He’d been entirely stationary, his glittering eyes fixed upon her form, his mouth curled into a mocking smirk revealing sharp white teeth.

Luckily, a shower cleaned away the memory of the dream, the water washing away the tendrils of sleep that still clawed at her. So, it was with a lighter heart that she made her way out of the door to school, laughing as she stole a piece of toast from her father’s hands and running to her truck, indignant shouts following on her heels. She was determined to forget all about having Biology third lesson, and, throwing herself into conversation with her new friends with an enthusiasm unprecedented for her usually introverted nature, she very nearly succeeded.

\--

He was already there as she walked into Biology, stationary, staring at the board in rapt attention. She handed the teacher the note from the nurse, explaining that she was late due to spraining her ankle during a game of dodgeball, and limped her way to her seat, sliding in next to Edward with a sinking heart. She’d hoped irrationally that he may have been elsewhere, that she’d be alone in this class, but it was not really to be.

She spent the lesson cowering in the chill he emanated, bemoaning her fate to any Gods that were listening.

\--

All too soon the crisp orange of autumn gave way into the harsh white of winter, and Bella’s father, fearing for her safety on the treacherous roads, made sure to fit snow chains to her tyres. She thanked him for this, as the gesture helped to quell the sense of strange foreboding she’d been experiencing lately. The nightmares about Edward Cullen were frequent, and the signs of her sleepless nights were showing, her long black hair lank and lifeless, her skin pale and her eyes shadowed. People had begun to look at her in that strange pitying way they do when they think you have some kind of illness. She’d fall asleep in most lessons, jerked awake by concerned friends moments later, though she always brushed away their questions with ‘I’ve just been preoccupied lately.’ It wasn’t a lie, really.

The only lesson she’d always stay awake in was Biology, where some primal deep seated fear told her not to let her guard down around the person who sat next to her. She’d spend the classes fighting the urge to run, her every instinct screaming at her to scurry far away, away from his hawk’s eyes, and never return. Her hands would shake as they worked on lab experiments together, her voice would crack as she’d read out her work to him, she was falling apart slowly at the seams and she knew it.

\--

She’d just finished English Language class, and, pondering as she was the message portrayed in the poem they’d been studying as she walked through the car park, she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going carefully enough. She was late getting out, having wanted to talk to the teacher about the requirements of taking English at a college level once class was over, and the car park was practically deserted. She tried to whistle to herself, anything to break the silence, and reached into her bag to get her keys out.

She never saw the patch of black ice. Her feet flew from under her as she stepped onto it, her mouth open in a wide O of shock as she flew backwards and cracked her head against the floor, her blood colouring the ground a muddy brown.

On the other end of the car park, Edward Cullen stood leaning against his own car. And watched.

\--

When she was ten she broke her arm.

Her mother had just got engaged, she’d wanted to do something to get her parent’s attention solely on her again. She’d climbed to the roof of the garage, clambering with difficulty up the wooden frame her mother was trying to train roses to grow on. She was small and determined, so she just made it up there. And so there she sat for an hour or so, waiting for her mother to come and find her, swinging her legs off the side and humming under her breath. She’d seen news broadcasts and held a vague idea that people on the edges of high places tended to get a lot of attention. So when her mother came out of the house looking for her and she waved from her perch, she grinned widely at the scream that followed. Her mother’s fiancé was quickly summoned, however, which made her stop smiling. He had a ladder, and, in a fit of childish temper, she scooted along the edge of the roof away from where he was climbing up, claiming she wanted her mommy and not him.

So, add to the mix one petulant, clumsy child, one anxious yet slightly annoyed adult and another who’s hysterical with fear and you know that nothing good is going to happen. Bella fell, of course.

This is real life. If you cut your hand you’ll bleed, if fall from a garage roof you’re not going to walk away without a scratch. Things don’t work like that.

\--

She woke up in the hospital and screamed.

Standing there, right in her line of vision, was Edward Cullen, his face set into a superior smirk that looked as though it was painted on. He rolled his eyes condescendingly at her scream, and her father, who she hadn’t realised was in the room, rushed to her side.

“Bella, Bella, what’s wrong?!”

He followed her gaze to Edward and sighed, smiling and fondly patting her shoulder. She kept her eyes on Edward, some ingrained fear telling her that looking away from him was a very bad thing to do. From her mind surfaced a memory of a happy day in Phoenix, when she and her friends had watched an episode of some stupid British show together. The heroine of that had been stalked by angels that turned to stone when you looked at them, and got you when you looked away. A silly thing, of course, a story, but it’s funny the comparisons the mind makes under pressure.

“Oh Bella, I know you don’t like your boyfriend seeing you in a hospital bed like this, but he was just worried about you.”

Slowly, her brain processed what he’d just said. Surely she must have misheard, where would he have gotten the idea that she and Edward were a couple? She had not spoken one word about him to her father, not even in passing. She assumed to have misheard him, and tried to sit up, but was forced to lie back as waves of pain, nausea and dizziness assaulted her.

“Boyfriend?”

Her father laughed in that forced way adults do when they’re trying to be brave, his eyes worried as he saw her pain in trying to sit up.

“Don’t sit up yet, you hit your head pretty hard.” He laid one hand on her arm, patting it in a gesture she supposed was meant to be comforting. He smiled sadly. “Edward there told me that he was your boyfriend, you don’t have to hide it from me anymore. My little girl’s growing up.”  
She raised her eyes to look at Edward, having not quite realised she’d looked away in the first place, and he slowly shook his head at her, grinning. He mouthed the words ‘Don’t tell’, and, as a shiver that had nothing to do with how thin the hospital blankets were wrought its way down her spine. She made a good attempt at a fake smile and tried to seem convincingly embarrassed that he’d found out about her ‘secret boyfriend’.

All the while she wanted to do nothing but scream.

\--

They kept her in overnight for observation. So, after her father left for home, long after Edward had skulked back to wherever he came from, she lay in the uncomfortable hospital bed wishing she was back home, and trying to get to sleep. Eventually, exhaustion overtook discomfort and she slipped into a fitful sleep full of restless dreams.

Strange dreams they were, too.

She dreamed that she could hear low voices, talking softly in a language she couldn’t understand, their words like flowing silk, an unbroken stream of unintelligible chatter. She thought she might recognise one of the voices, but it’s often hard to recognise a voice in a language you don’t understand. As the voices came closer she opened one eye, some deep seated instinct telling her not to reveal that she wasn’t sleeping, while her mind, ignored by her body, insisted that this was just a dream and such caution was unnecessary. The pair stopped in front of her bed, and she was hardly surprised to see that Edward was one of them. He seemed to feature in all her dreams, now. The other man, however, he was obviously another Cullen. He had the same twisted beauty that the other Cullens possessed, his mouth pulled into a good humoured smile over teeth that were just that little bit too sharp, laugh lines around the eyes that were just a little too bright. In his hand he held an empty syringe, and her mind briefly panicked as she remembered that just one small air bubble in your veins can kill you. However, he depressed the lever on the syringe, letting the air out of it, and as Edward gestured to her he plunged it into her arm, drawing fresh crimson blood from her before taking the needle from her arm and handing it to Edward. He, in turn, placed the end in his mouth, depressing the plunger to deposit roughly half the fresh blood into his mouth, before passing it to the other Cullen to do the same.  
She was frozen in shock, her mind relaying to her that this must be a dream, this must be a dream, things like this don’t happen in real life, she’d wake up in Phoenix soon and her mother would make her waffles with nutella for breakfast like she always would when her little Bella had a nightmare, and all of this horror would be over. Over.

But real life isn’t a dream, and Bella woke in the cold hospital bed. She was still in Forks, Washington, and she had a small bruise on her arm. Like the bruise a needle would leave when you got blood taken.

\--

When she went back to school, two days afterwards, she was almost immediately invited to go shopping with Jessica and Allison, who were probably guilty for not waiting for her after English and thus preventing her fall. She accepted, wanting to take her mind off the hospital visit and the strange sense of being watched that she seemed to experience almost continually these days. She figured that shopping might be fun, especially as they agreed to go out for a meal afterwards. There was a great restaurant just outside the mall and Jessica supposedly knew this really hot guy who worked there.

Saturday came, and Allison picked her up outside her house bright and early, eager and ready for a day full of shopping. They’d decided to go out of town to shop, there was a great place with a huge mall only about an hour’s drive away, and nobody really liked shopping in Forks if they could help it, it wasn’t exactly a cornucopia of consumerist items.

So they drove to their shoppers’ paradise, all the while singing in dreadful harmony to whatever cheesy pop song was playing on Allison’s ancient radio, and, for the first time in what seemed like forever, Bella let herself relax. She was determined to enjoy today, a girls’ day out with two friends.

And so they got there, chattering to one another, their breath misting as they rubbed their gloved hands together against the encroaching cold. They spent hours in the dress shop, trying on all the prom dresses, twirling and laughing as their mirror reflections did the same. They waited impatiently as Jessica tried to decide whether to buy her prom dress early now, while there was more choice available, or later when she had more money saved up. Eventually she decided on later, and they moved onto other shops, Jessica looking longingly towards the dress shop every now and again, much to Allison’s chagrin.

They stopped in Starbucks for a snack at around lunchtime, and after that Bella split off from the other two to try and locate a book shop, as she had to buy a new copy of Wuthering Heights for English class after she accidentally dropped her old one in the bath. Her friends laughed at her clumsiness and offered to meet her in an hour or so in front of the restaurant, bidding farewell as they went off in search of earrings.

Remember now, it was midwinter at this point of the story. As Bella split from her two friends, it was already mid afternoon, and in these Northern states it tends to get dark surprisingly early. So is it really surprising that within half an hour of splitting from her friends, Bella found herself wandering gloomy streets, hopelessly lost? In vain she tried to search out some manner of landmark, something she remembered to lead her back to the safety of the mall. Pulling her coat tightly around her, she plucked up her courage and approached a stranger to ask for directions. He looked to be in his mid twenties, alone, with a black coat done up over his chin and a rather unfortunate haircut. He watched with thinly veiled interest as she approached.

“Excuse me... I was wondering if you could tell me the way back to the mall, I’m meant to be meeting my friends you see...”

The man opened his mouth to answer, but never got a chance. One second he was standing right in front of her, the next he was draped over a bollard over the other end of the street, his face contorted in pain. She gasped in air, prepared to scream, when she felt an icy hand clamp itself tightly over her mouth and a voice like treacle, dripping with false sweetness, hissed into her ear.

“I wouldn’t scream if I was you.”

She froze, too terrified to turn around. She knew that voice, knew it all too well. Why was Edward here? She was over an hour away from Forks, was he following her? Did he mirror her every move? Was there nowhere she could get away from his lingering presence? As if reading her thoughts, he laughed, a low sound with no trace of actual mirth in it. If she hadn’t been frozen with terror before, now she certainly was. She was alone on a dark street with a man who haunted her nightmares. She found herself wondering if, being a policeman, her father would be able to bring her justice after her death.

“Oh, little Bella, I’ve been watching you very carefully. You’re an interesting one.” He paused then for a second, taking a long breath of air through his nose, as though sniffing her, before slowly licking at her exposed neck. His tongue felt like an ice cube on the surface of her skin, and her mind screamed in horror. What kind of monster was he? This was like something out of a bad horror novel. He laughed again, turning her around to face him and hugging her tightly in a way that felt more confining than comforting. He smelled of peppermint and ice, the material of his jacket soft against her face as he pressed her firmly into the unyielding flesh beneath. Slowly, he leaned down until his lips were brushing her ear.

“You taste wonderful.”

It was then that our protagonist, almost mad with fear, finally surrendered to the forgiving embrace of unconsciousness.

\--

She woke up several hours later in the driver’s seat of her truck, the clock on her dashboard cheerfully displaying the time in neon luminescence. She was parked in the driveway of her home, and the keys were in her hand. Looking around, startled, she considered the possibility that she was losing her mind, and went to open the truck’s door to go back to her home, back to the bliss of normality. However, as she pushed against the door, a sharp pain in her forearm made her stop. With a strange sense of dread, she pushed up the sleeve of her coat to reveal a small cut, still sluggishly oozing scarlet. She dismissed this nervously as just something she’d done clumsily earlier and not realised at the time, though her rapid scurry back to the house betrayed the mounting terror she felt beating at her mind.

As she let herself in, she almost relaxed to hear the familiar strains of the television. Her father was apparently watching the news, and she gladly slipped onto the sofa beside him to watch while he smiled at her and asked her how her day had gone. She lied, said she had a wonderful time. She would have elaborated on the lie, but at that moment a news story came on that captured her attention fully.

In a town near Forks a young man had been killed in the street, his spine snapped as he was thrown onto a bollard. A young man wearing a black coat, with an unfortunate hair cut.

She didn’t sleep that night.

\--

Really, you could argue that what happened next was the fault of Bella’s friends. They’d decided that she needed taking out of herself, seeing as she always looked so ill these days. They wouldn’t take no for an answer when she turned down their offer of an invite to the party on the reservation that was taking place on Friday night. Determined that they were doing good in getting her out to meet more people, they picked her up from her house Friday night, and were overjoyed to see her hit it off with a guy there.

\--

Bella liked Jacob Black.

He was funny, intelligent in a kind of specialised way that can seem stupid to those who don’t know him, and, best of all, he made the icy feeling of foreboding in her chest melt just by being around him. When he hugged her she wasn’t afraid, he was warm and gentle, and she gladly buried her face in his shirt in the light of the fire. At the end of the night he kissed her, quickly and nervously, a blush on his dark face. He told her stories of werewolves and vampires and she listened attentively. He was glad that she was listening to him, she was glad he spoke to her. When the party was over they made an agreement to meet up again the next weekend, and smiled at one another under the stars, both thinking that they were very lucky to have found each other.

That was the Friday night. By Sunday morning Jacob Black was dead.

\--

It was the afternoon after Jacob’s funeral, and Bella was wallowing in misery on her bed, her tears long since dried and her face stiff with salt. She hugged the pillow between her arms, burying her nose in the fabric. Her father and his best friend Billy, Jacob’s father, were downstairs, drinking beer in shared grief. She needed something to drink, but wanted to avoid going downstairs. It was somehow wrong to see strong grown men cry, she felt.

After around an hour of moping, however, she decided that maybe some fresh air might do her good. So she grabbed some coke from the fridge, grabbed her car keys and drove herself to the edge of the woods to the east of the town. Getting out of the truck, she shivered in the cool winter air, wrapping her scarf tightly around her neck as she took gulps of coke so cold it burned her mouth.

So she entered the woods, catching herself as she almost fell over a tree branch on the floor, glad of the biting chill that seemed to rouse her from the stupor she’d been existing in. The ancient trees around her were covered in a fine film of white frost, and it lent the place an almost magical air. She remembered reading the story of Narnia, a land trapped in eternal winter, as a child, and could imagine the place looking like this. She almost expected Mister Tumnus to scuttle out from behind a tree, and half smiled at the absurdity of the thought.

So wrapped up in her own thoughts was she, she didn’t notice the unearthed root until it was too late and her face met the forest floor. Groaning, she picked herself up, wiping away a thin sliver of blood from her mouth. She’d bitten her lip in the fall, and the pain, as it often is with such wounds, exaggerated the seriousness of the injury. Deciding to make her way back to her truck, she turned to face the way she’d come. And found a figure blocking her path.

Even with a hood hiding his face from view, she could still tell that it was Edward Cullen.  
His pose was relaxed in a way that seemed forced, one hand stuck in his jeans’ pocket while the other dangled by his hip, his legs spread slightly apart as he stood silent and still. Slowly, something that had somehow escaped her attention all of the other times she’d seen him was evident now. As he tipped her face up to an angle where she could better see it, she realised that the white clouds of steam that emanated from her mouth when she breathed were absent on him. He wasn’t breathing.

Biting back a horrified scream, she backed away, inadvertently tripping over the same tree root she had less than a minute ago. She tried to scramble backwards while picking herself up, a move that mostly failed due to her lack of coordination. He laughed and strode closer, while she, wild with fear, picked up a large stick that lay beside her to use as a makeshift weapon.

“Wha-what are you?!”

Her hysteria was evident in her voice, and he merely crouched down beside her, catching the stick she tried to beat him with effortlessly in one hand, despite Bella having put her entire strength into the swing. He smiled again at her, but there was no mirth in it, he was merely showing his teeth.

“I’m impossibly fast, and strong. My skin is pale white and ice cold. I never eat or drink anything. I don't go out in the sunlight. What do you think I am, little Isabella Swan?”

She shook her head desperately, trying to deny what was in front of her face. He couldn’t be... Couldn’t... Monsters belonged in horror movies, this was real life, things like this just didn’t happen in real life. And yet apparently hell was empty and the monsters were all here, because one of them was stroking her cheek gently with the frozen fingers of a corpse.

“You- you can’t be! Things like this aren’t real!”

He quirked an eyebrow at her, pulling back his hand from her face, and shook his head, chuckling under his breath. He stood up, pulling her with him, keeping a vice-like grip on her wrist so she couldn’t run. His fingers were iron bars, and no matter how hard she pulled he didn’t move a solitary inch. With his other hand he grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him, a smile on his face that chilled the very blood in her veins. He kissed her slowly, licking the blood from her lip with an icy tongue.

“Do you want me to show you exactly how real I am, little Isabella Swan?”

\--

In real life, people who play with fire get burned. Nobody rises from the dead, there was no last minute hero to save an innocent soul from damnation. Though it may sound ridiculous to say so, people die when they are killed, and Isabella Swan was killed rather brutally, her body torn apart, presumably one of those wolf attacks that had been happening with increasing frequency in the woods of late.

\--

Nobody really questioned why Edward Cullen left town after the funeral of Isabella Swan. It was common knowledge by then that the two had been secretly dating, so everyone assumed he was just grieving. He was never put under serious suspicion for her death, because, after all, there was no way a human could have ripped the poor girl into shreds like that. They assumed that his grief had taken him to foreign lands, a change of scenery to get away from what he’d lost in Forks.

After all, why else would he go to Italy?

\--

Under the protection of the Volturi, Edward truly smiled for the first time in years.

His hunger was finally gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a year, year and a half, ago. I posted it up on FF.net at the time, deleted it off the website when purging my account and promptly forgot about it until about two days ago someone messaged me asking if it was still posted online anywhere, because they'd like to read it again.
> 
> That selfsame person then convinced me it might be a good idea to post it on here.


End file.
